I personally don't care if Lacey goes to Kansas or Cambodia to play basketball anymore. The tail is now wagging the dog. Color me no longer interested in where he goes. I'd be happy if he came to play at Alabama, but I can't help wondering just how a kid like him would fit into a system where all parts are considered equal. At Alabama it is all about team. It is all about buying into a system that wears an opponent down to sawdust. For some reason I just can't see Lacey as that type of player. If this kid has made five official visits and he is still saying he "won't know until I pick up the hat" isn't exactly the type player I want holding the ball for a winning shot in the waning moments of a championship game. I'd take my chances with the ones we've signed already and keep that grant-in-aid for next season. If you think that Levi or Rodney wouldn't love to win or lose a game at the end then you don't know them.
Lacey is a great player and would be a good addition to any team, but you can put your five best players on the floor and not have your best team playing. If the adulation and immaturity of holding out until the 18th is all that important let him go. When the tornado ravaged people of Tuscaloosa started picking up the pieces of their lives, Lacey could have made a statement about his love of this state by picking Alabama. That simple act would have lifted the spirits of a lot of down on their luck fans. Nope. Play the game and ride it out to the end. I'm not intimating that Lacey should have changed his mind if wasn't coming to 'Bama. I am saying that in not picking Alabama during that time you can forget him coming to 'Bama. He isn't coming, and Coach Grant really doesn't need that type of childish self-centered behavior from anyone on his team. In Nashville one year James Robinson made the All-Tournament team. With 13,000 people chanting the name Gary Waites, who did not make the team, James walked over and handed Gary his medal. There is a big difference in having character and being a character. I've always thought that Alabama avoided that type of player. Maybe I have completely misjudged this kid. Maybe not. The moniker prima donna is appropriate in this case.
If he comes I'll be happy. He is doesn't come I'll be just as happy. The fundamental character of any basketball team is no better that the most selfish person on your team. I may be wrong, but I just don't sense that Lacey is about anyone other than Lacey. It's almost like you can hear the announcer saying, "The Kansas starting five featuring Trevor Lacey". Is it me or does that seem very unlike any Crimson Tide sports team you've ever seen.
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